530 
Typical Farms in East Anglia. 
9. “ Landowners have reduced rents, the acreage of wheat sown is much 
less, barley and oats being substituted with doubtful advantage. Farmers 
appear to trust more to general all-round carefulness than to any heroic 
remedies for the present lamentable state of agriculture.” 
10. “ We have gone to our landlords for reduction of rent. We have cur- 
tailed household expenses in many ways, and have undertaken anything out- 
side the farm that promised to bring in revenue. We all work, — my son, the 
only one of eight now at home, does the work of those on the farm of his 
age ; next year he must move up. We have kept our labour bill as low as 
possible, and many operations tending more to neatness than profit are now 
discontinued. W e have substituted oats in the room of wheat to a large 
extent, and have abandoned the cultivation of a great deal of the poorest 
land. Year by year we are compelled to admit that the high scientific, costly 
farming of 25 years since will not answer on our uncertain description of 
land under existing circumstances and prices.” 
These are the answers given to a question which seems an 
all-important one, so far as agriculture is concerned. 
Although in the districts I visited derelict farms are almost 
unknown, yet in a neighbouring county they are quite common, 
and whole districts are going out of cultivation. 
What the end is to be cannot at present be seen. It is 
quite evident, however, that, apart altogether from such ex- 
ceptionally well-managed farms as those I had the pleasure to 
go over, the general condition of the farms in all districts where 
corn is looked upon as the mainstay has been, if slowly, yet 
surely declining. 
Nor is this to be wondered at. The income from corn sales 
is now one half what it was ten years ago, beef is cheaper, 
mutton is cheaper, wool is lower, and so are all the less impor- 
tant products of the farm. On the other side, while we have 
manures, feeaing-stuffs, and machinery lower, and in most cases 
rents reduced, yet the actual working expenses of the farm, the 
rates and the taxes, amount to as much as, if not more than, when 
products realised nearly, if not quite, twice as much. 
It may be poor consolation for us, as farmers, to know that 
we are not so badly off as our brethren in those foreign and 
colonial countries whose products have demoralised our markets, 
yet it seems to many that foreign supplies must have a stopping 
point, and unremunerative production must cease. 
Dark as the prospects may now be, we may be nearer better 
farming times than anyone imagines. Such farms as I inspected 
— full of manure, clean, and in good heart — may, and it is to be 
sincerely hoped that they will, prove veritable gold mines to 
their enterprising and intelligent occupiers when the change 
takes place. 
Darlington. 
Robert Bruce. 
